


Song and Storm

by coveredinfeels



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cultural Differences, Getting Together, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-03 19:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8727571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coveredinfeels/pseuds/coveredinfeels
Summary: The Iron Bull likes music. So did Hissrad. So did Ashkaari.But sometimes, you can't march to the old tunes anymore.Or: The Iron Bull and Dorian Pavus discuss music, among other things. (Unfortunately, their feelings are not one of the other things).





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sparkleymask](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparkleymask/gifts).



> The actual prompt was:
> 
> _That stringed instrument (a lute? I don't know, this isn't really my area) propped up in Dorian's little alcove in the library at Skyhold. Is it his? Can he play it? Does he? Does he sing? Does Bull catch him playing by accident? Does Dorian perform for him voluntarily? Does Bull find it wildly attractive?_
> 
> I think I sort of filled it, albeit via a huge detour around My Headcanons On Music In The Qun. Hope you enjoy!

He's heading up to report to Red when he sees it. Doesn't mean to let Dorian catch him looking. Does let Dorian catch him _looking_ , time after time, part of their game, but generally that doesn't involve musical instruments.

Doesn't involve memories he'd rather let lie silent.

“Come now, I know you've been in what passes for civilisation down here long enough to know what one of those is.” Dorian eyes him over the top of an unnecessarily large book, probably full of forbidden magic shit Bull honestly doesn't want to know anything about. “Even if your musical tastes appear to begin and end with dirty ballads.”

An opening to a pattern, a set piece. Almost too obvious to bother with, and he's not sure his heart is in it right now. “I just didn't know you played.” He's also fairly sure that wasn't here a week ago.

“It's Orlesian, and therefore a poor imitation of the genuine article,” Dorian says, “but under the circumstances, I suppose one must make do. I won it in a game of cards.”

He smiles as he says it, which means that it's either a lie or he's hoping to be accused of one. Perhaps both. “You should stop cheating at cards.” Especially since he's not even that good a cheat.

“I play perfectly fair, by Tevinter standards.”

“My point stands.” He remembers a head bent over strings, picking out tunes. Music swallowed up by the sand and the sea and the storm. “Perhaps I'll get to hear you play, some time.”

Unexpectedly, this makes Dorian laugh out loud. “Perhaps.” he says. His gaze burns. “Not today, though. Isn't our dear spymaster expecting you?”

A raven cries, and Dorian turns back to his books.

* * *

For some reason, Dorian Pavus is consistently fascinated with the concept that the Qun has pretty much everything most civilisations do, only better organised and with less rogue demons running about. So he should expect the question to come, only he doesn't, until it does, some weeks later.

“Does the Qun even _have_ music?” Dorian asks him. It's not entirely out of the blue, as they are sitting in a corner while Rocky is regaling the assembled Chargers with a song about a lady miner, agilely ducking any objects tossed in response to particularly bad puns about tunnels and caves.

“ _Each instrument with its place in a single harmony_.” he sings, by way of response. Could laugh at his own voice. Would never have made a good musician, even when he was young and whole, but some words and notes he can remember. Can't forget.

Dorian leans in, looking fascinated. “A man of many hidden talents, aren't you. May I ask for a translation, or should I hazard a guess-- something about the glory of the Qun?”

“What do you sing about in Tevinter? How great magic is?”

“Oh, sex and death, mostly.” Dorian replies. An artful, deliberate pause. “And about the glory of the Imperium, of course.”

He laughs, then. “Think my boys have me covered for the 'songs about sex' part.”

“The ones about death are mostly metaphors for sex, anyway.” Dorian says, purses his lips thoughtfully. “And some of the ones about sex are actually metaphors for death.”

“Your people have some fucked up ideas about sex.”

Dorian smirks, not looking at all put out by this observation. A month or two ago he would have taken sharper offence, but of late he's taken to parrying with innuendo. “Mmm, you have me there. Or you might, if you play your cards right. Curious?”

More than he should be, all things considered. He doesn't get friendly with mages for a reason. Dalish doesn't count, because-- well, Dalish doesn't count. “Remind me to tell you a story about bees, sometime.”

“If it's the same one you told the Inquisitor last week, don't bother. They sting.” Dorian returns. “And make for terrible metaphors.”

* * *

Tama teaches them the learning-songs, to help remember things that ought to be remembered, and even though Ashkaari is good at remembering he likes them, because Tama likes them.

Tama teaches them the working-songs, assigns a girl with a clear, high voice to be the caller, and Ashkaari is not jealous of her even one bit even if this means she gets to spend more time with Tama, learning tunes and rhythms and words.

Tama has another song, one that doesn't have any words or any purpose in particular, that she sings sometimes, when Ashkaari is ill, or when Ashkaari is supposed to be sleeping but his mind is too awake, and Ashkaari likes that one best of all.

He'd like to learn it, but Ashkaari, to his eternal disappointment, is not very good at singing.

* * *

Out at camp, in the cold, and Dorian is coldly furious for reasons that escape everyone in the party who doesn't speak Tevene, which is, therefore, everyone. The Venatori they'd hunted down had found the time and breath to sling some insult or other at Dorian which had apparently found a mark.

Bull can recognise a number of Tevene insults, from his time in Seheron, but if it doesn't involve phrases like _filthy ox_ or _stinking beast_ , he's rather lost.

Besides, he suspects this had been something more personal. He doesn't know, but from circumstantial evidence, like the fact that this guy had been somebody Dorian knew and wanted dead, and all the things that had ended up on fire, it's a fairly good guess.

He'd have to be a lot stupider than he looks to actually ask Dorian about it, though. “So, is playing an instrument a thing they teach all the baby magisters in Tevinter, in between the evil laughing and learning to use those weird little forks?”

“You've been talking to Sera.” Dorian responds, sounding resigned, but he doesn't actually try to verbally bite Bull's head off, which is a sort of progress. “And also of course not, the upper classes do not waste time on the practice of such prosaic talents. Instead, we pay very large amounts of money to suitably fashionable musicians so that they will drift about our parties looking decorative. Occasionally, they even play music.”

“So where'd you learn?”

“From my grandfather's mistress.” Dorian replies. “One of the aforementioned decorations. He supplied her with a residence, where she threw wonderfully disreputable parties I shouldn't have been anywhere near, attended by musicians and artists and the more refined class of assassin.”

His smile is warm with memory. The Iron Bull imagines Dorian as a young man, flirting with scandal-- when he was a little more like the man he pretends to be to annoy the locals. “And while you were there, you just figured you'd just pick it up?”

“Oh, it was about sex, of course.” Dorian says. “There was someone I very much wanted to impress. A _private performance_ has rather more than one meaning in those circles, you know.”

Ah, there's the piece of the puzzle he was missing. “I didn't know that.”

“That's what made it so funny.” Dorian smirks. “Fancy _The Iron Bull_ missing a piece of innuendo.”

“And now I do know, if I asked again?”

“That would depend on the circumstances. I'm no circus animal, to perform on cue. Perhaps you should wait for an offer.”

Well, there's as close as Dorian's gotten to a direct hint yet. Noted. “Bet it's quite a show, though.”

“I _am_ very good.” Dorian purrs, and then sighs, leans back. “However, if you think for a second you're getting anywhere near any sort of show in this weather, I will lose any tiny scrap of respect I may have ever had for you.”

* * *

“Why are you carrying that about?” Gatt says. “It's broken.” 

“It just needs the strings fixed!” Baquon replies, hugging it close to his chest. “My Tama had me pegged for a musician before my growth spurt, I know how to do it.”

Gatt snorts. “Hissrad, talk some sense into him.”

“Hissrad, may I keep it?” He raises his gaze from the paperwork. Baquon, biting his lip. One of his many tells. Good fighter, terrible at hiding his emotions. Gatt crosses his arms, stubborn as ever. Wants to be right. Wants Hissrad to tell him he's right.

It's a broken thing, for sure, that Baquon has fished out of some caved-in house, but his fingers rest on the curve of the instrument like it's something precious. “If it doesn't interfere with your duties.”

“When I've fixed it, I'll play something for you.”

Like a child trying to impress his Tama. This is what they send him, these days. Raw clay, for Hissrad to try and shape into something before they get a knife in the back. They're none of them what is needed in Seheron. They're all so _young_. “If it doesn't interfere with my duties.”

* * *

It is a few more weeks of hints and jokes about _performance anxiety_ before Dorian pushes his cup away, slips his hand over the top of Bull's before one of the Chargers can fill it up, and leans in to murmur “So, about that private performance I mentioned before--”

“This is about sex, right?”

Dorian sighs at him. His breath is warm on Bull's shoulder. “Just get your large, unsubtle ass up the stairs before I change my mind.”

“Audience of one, coming right up.”

In his room, Dorian looks around, and tuts, even as he loosens his buckles. “I see your taste in interior decoration is a match for your taste in apparel.”

“You really come here to critique my curtains?”

“Not really.” Dorian looks him over. “Although I seem to have forgotten my instrument, so if you'd still like a performance, you'd better come over here and see if you can make me sing.”

And he complains about Bull's flirting. “That line ever work for you?”

An eyebrow arches. “If I'm not mistaken, it's working right now.”

Well.

He's not wrong.

* * *

Hissrad ought to tell Baquon that he's wasting his time, that Seheron is no place for such things.

But, true to his word, he doesn't let it interfere with his duties. Has the sense to leave it to those rare moments when they have the space to breathe, and non-functional actions feel permissible again.

He's not really any good, but the songs he plays--

“My Tama taught me this, I think.” Vasaad says.

Between them, a map. The exact details Hissrad needs, as always, are in the areas that nobody's been properly able to scout yet. “Did your Tama teach you to not run out in front and leave your back wide open?”

He means, mine too, but what his men need from Hissrad is not pretty stories about his childhood or words of comfort. Hissrad is strong and unbending, a fixed point for them to rally about in an uncertain world.

Even if that, too, is no more than a lie, that is what his people need.

* * *

He never sees Dorian play, but the instrument is always there in the library when he passes, and the position moves just enough to tell him it is being used, or at least handled from time to time.  
He's already made all of _those_ jokes, though.

“Did it work?” he asks, this time on his way back down from a visit to Red. “The whole seduction-through-music thing.”

Dorian gives him Offended Look #4: _I am offended by the very act of questioning me._ “Of course it did.”

“And?”

“I think you have wheedled enough stories of Tevinter out of me to know there was never any _and_.” Dorian's lips tighten. There's a story there that won't be told. “Still, I learnt a skill and annoyed my father, so it wasn't a complete waste of my time. Still angling for a performance?”

“Hey, you know I'm always up for seeing you handle your instrument.” Okay, so maybe he's made this joke before, but the good ones bear repeating.

Offended look #7 is _I can't believe I'm going to sleep with you after you said that_ , and it's probably Bull's favourite of the lot.

* * *

Baquon dies in the sand, and there's no time for anything more than a hasty burial.

Back at camp, Gatt silently wraps the instrument in borrowed cloth, and Vasaad sets it on the fire.

They sung, he's pretty sure, the song that Baq liked. That Tamassrans teach to their imekari for reasons Hissrad never did figure out.

He doesn't remember, because by then he'd lost the tune. He'd been too long in Seheron, and all he could hear was the storm.

* * *

Now the storm comes again, a buzzing sensation of fear and uncertainty. Tal-Vashoth. Tal-Vashoth. Tal-Vashoth.

The worst part of all is, he doesn't feel like he made the wrong decision. He sees the Chargers in the Herald's Rest, half of them still with battle wounds a little too raw to show off to whoever it is they're trying to impress, and he only feels glad.

_Listen_ , Koslun said, _and that which you thought was dissonance will become harmony._

__Koslun seems to have remained silent on what to do when it happens in reverse._ _

__Is it some fault in him? A broken instrument, no longer able to fit into its place in the world? He hopes the answer is as simple as that. The alternative is something too large for him to think about right now._ _

__His boys try not to let him stay alone too long, so when he hears shuffling feet outside his door he sighs and gets up to open it. Might as well see if they brought pie. Instead of Krem or Rocky or Dalish, though, it's Dorian, one hand half-raised as if to knock, the other holding the instrument awkwardly. Orlesians apparently didn't think to put a carry-strap on it. “I _may_ have worded my opinions on recent events a little strongly.”_ _

__Yeah, that's one way of putting it. “In the same sense that Maraas-Lok is a little strong.”_ _

__“I am _attempting_ to apologise,” Dorian says, and then spoils it by adding “although I am entirely correct.”_ _

__“How about we skip the part where we talk things through.” Bull suggests, before Dorian can dig that particular hole any deeper. “Come in.”_ _

__Dorian settles on the less rickety of his two chairs, positions himself. “I won't be offended if you don't like it. The Vyrantium style is often said to be something of an acquired taste.” Fine words, that don't at all hide his nervousness._ _

___I'm sorry,_ Bull thinks, _I don't understand why this is important to you.__ _

__A second thought: _Maybe I could find out.__ _

__Dorian bows his head, intent. An unfamiliar tune. And this time, at least for a little while, the song swallows up the storm._ _


End file.
